Background to this inspection
Updated
3 December 2018
Rookery Medical Partnership (also known as Rookery Medical Centre) provides medical care for approximately 14,114 patients in the locality. The practice is situated in Rookery House, 40 The Rookery, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 8NW.
There are a range of patient population groups that use the practice and the practice holds a GMS contract with the West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice is registered to provide the following regulated activities: treatment of disease, disorder or injury; diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures, family planning and Maternity and midwifery services.
The practice has 12 GPs (10 female and 2 male) of whom four are partners in the practice. There are eight practice nurses and three health care assistants. Rookery Medical Partnership provides dispensing services. This service is delivered by a dispensary manager, a deputy lead dispenser and eight dispensers. The GPs, nurses and dispensers are supported by a practice manager, the deputy practice manager and a team of administration and reception staff.
A wide range of services and clinics are offered by the practice including: asthma, diabetes, weight management and minor surgery. The practice has a comprehensive website providing a wealth of information for patients to understand and access services, including useful links to specialist support services.
The practice is a teaching and training practice. A teaching and training practice has trainee GPs and medical students working in the practice; a trainee GP is a qualified doctor who is undertaking further training to become a GP. A trainer is a GP who is qualified to teach, support, and assess trainee GPs.
The practice is open from 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday, with extended opening hours on Saturday from 8.30am to midday. National data indicates that people living in the area are in the overall deprivation decile of seven, where one indicates areas with the most deprivation and ten indicates the least areas of deprivation in comparison to England. The practice demography is broadly similar to the CCG and England average.
Updated
3 December 2018
This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating July 2016 – Good)
The key questions at this inspection are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? - Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Rookery Medical Partnership on 30 October 2018. We inspected the practice as part of our inspection programme.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported they were able to access care when they needed it.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
- The practice’s performance on quality indicators was 100% which was above the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and England averages with comparable exception reporting rates.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care they provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines. We saw evidence of audits that drove improvements throughout all levels of care.
- We found there were established safeguarding processes for all staff to follow. Staff were encouraged to report safeguarding concerns. The information was shared with other relevant agencies. The practice had appointed a clinical and non-clinical safeguarding lead and staff had received the appropriate training.
- Patients in care homes were visited weekly by the GPs to ensure they had continuity of care and to reduce admissions into accident and emergency.
- The practice was a teaching and training practice for medical students and qualified doctors training to become a general practitioner.
- The practice held weekly advanced wound care clinics to help those patients who found it difficult to get appointments with the community leg ulcer service. The clinic provided both wound care to tissue viability standard and the measurement of stockings, after care advice and tips on the prevention of further leg ulcers. This was a service that Rookery Medical Centre provided free of charge to the CCG. We saw positive feedback from patients regarding this service.
- The CCG pharmacist was an independent prescriber and attended the practice regularly. They carried out polypharmacy reviews on patients taking more than eight medicines. The aim was to stop unnecessary medicines and to reduce side effects. Patients could have an appointment with the GP afterwards for any further questions.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.